A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to CNGH0010 polypeptides, variants, and fragments thereof, and antibodies and anti-idiotype antibodies specific therefor, as well as nucleic acids encoding such CNGH0010 polypeptides, variants, fragments, antibodies, complementary nucleic acids, vectors, host cells, and methods of making and using thereof, including diagnostic and therapeutic formulations, administration and devices.
B. Background and Related Art
Psoriasis is a genetic, multifactorial, chronic inflammatory skin disease, with a prevalence of 2.6% in the U.S. population. The disease is characterized by pronounced hyperproliferation of keratinocytes, which results in rapid epidermal turnover and thickened, scaly, red plaques observed clinically. Other prominent histopathological features of the disease are alterations of cytokine production, fibroblast activation, vascular expansion, and leukocyte infiltration in the dermis and epidermis. Dysregulation in cytokine production from both activated cells in the dermis and the immune cells seems to play an important role in mediating the inflammatory events associated with psoriasis. To this end, a number of changes in gene and/or protein expression have been described previously in psoriasis and some of these genes and/or proteins have also been found to be associated with other inflammatory diseases. These include proinflammatory cytokines such as IL-1 and TNFα, adhesion molecules, such as intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM1) and vascular adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM1), chemokines, and defensins. Recently, gene expression microarray technology has been applied to profile gene expression patterns in normal versus psoriatic lesional skins on a more inclusive scale and has provided new insights into the pathogenesis of psoriasis.
cDNA microarray technology provides a format for the simultaneous measurement of the expression level of thousands of genes in a single hybridization assay. It is also amenable to an automated, high-throughput format. More importantly, microarray technology can be used to discover new genes, quantify and analyze gene expression and assign functionality to genes with unknown function. With the complete sequencing of the human genome, identification and cloning of new genes is now accomplished rapidly. However, the understanding of whether these genes encode new proteins and the further identification of the function of these new proteins have not advanced as rapidly. The impediment has become one of the main reasons for the use of high throughput cDNA microarray technology in a well-designed experimental setting to discover novel protein-encoding genes or genes with novel functions that may subsequently become potential therapeutic targets for a variety of human diseases.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide new polypeptides, polynucleotides, antibodies, or fragments thereof and uses thereof relevant to diseases and conditions, as well as improvements over known polypeptides, polynucleotides, antibodies or fragments thereof.